Medieval Heroes, Early Modern Villains

This subject addresses the two-way (and often ambiguous) relationship between fiction and history, and explores the ways in which legendary or pseudo-historical heroes and villains – such as Hector of Troy and Cymbeline – are reimagined and exploited in medieval and early modern English literature. In addition to analysing how legendary figures have been deployed to support premodern geopolitical agendas, the subject will also examine how real historical figures were portrayed as heroes and/or villains, often in explicit relation to legendary figures. Through attention to cultural and historical contexts, we will explore the ‘uses’ of the past and of its heroes and villains for constructions of identity – political, personal, social and national. Texts will range from Old English poetry to early modern drama, including works such as Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Shakespeare’s Richard III. No prior knowledge of medieval literature is assumed.

• 1critically analyse various adaptations and deployments of some of the central figures of medieval and early modern English literary culture
• 2engage with scholarship on the relationship between texts studied, and between the texts and their cultural and historical contexts
• 3articulate the relationship between history and fiction, and the ways that the past can be used to construct national, social, and political identities
• 4read literary and historical texts from the medieval and early modern periods
• 5identify the way language changed through the medieval to the early modern period.